Dumped on Valentine’s Day

Girls love a bit of Valentine’s Day. It’s all roses, chocolates and ‘oh isn’t love magical?’

But for your average bloke, especially those ordained by ‘boyfriendly’ duty to rise to such an occasion, it can be a right nightmare.

I remember a couple of years back, I had a girlfriend around Valentine’s Day. I was short on money, and like most men, short on ideas on how to fill the vacuum of expectation. A mate told me to do something sentimental.

I write songs and a bit of poetry, so I thought, write her a poem. They always say that it’s the thought that counts, and I planned for it to take more thought than just getting out my debit card, so the idea seemed inspired.

Compare her to a rose, throw in a textbook seasonal analogy, quids in! And just in case, I made restaurant reservations at some fancy place, so she knew I’d spent a bit of money.

So we’re sitting down to dinner, and the time comes for the gift exchange. I calmly whip out ‘the poem’ and she slides me an envelope.

As I’m breaking the seal on mine, I watch as she gradually surrenders a smile, her heart melting with the allure of my Shakespearian wordplay.

“I’m onto a winner here,” I think. I pull out my gift, and enclosed is a pair of tickets to a basketball game at Madison Square Garden, and an engraved silver necklace that read: “because you’re worth it”.

My first instinct is, have we had some sort of L’Oreal banter at some point which I’m not aware of, or was this prophetically designed to make my present look even more pathetic? Once she had the time to process that my poem is her only gift, the obvious “is this all you got me?” question comes.

I draw attention to the fact that I compared her to summer’s first dawn, but that doesn’t seem to cut any ice. A row ensues, and a lot of words rhyming with “stick” are used.

While I sat there staring blankly at the basketball tickets, as she reeled off all the ways in which I’d wronged her, two thoughts came to my mind: all of that “thought counts” and “do something sentimental” talk is nonsense, and, “I wonder if the seats are courtside”.

I never did get to find out the answer. She ripped up the tickets and vowed never to speak to me again, a promise that she kept.

So to lads out there looking for cheap, creative ways of impressing their misses on Valentine’s Day, my advice is don’t bother. Save your time and spend a dime, you’ll lose less sleep. Good luck.